How I Use Investors Business Daily With TCNet

Great post!

And just as I expected, smart, but most of all DISCIPLINED!

Its the mark of all great investors. The discpipline, I mean.

Thank you very much.

Sorry for the delay. But we had a big south swell (my backyard) and I had a friend over who left on Sunday.

I have to enjoy this island now. You never know what can happen tomorrow.

Having balance of fun and work in life is a must to be a successful trader.

So I assume you set stops, just in case, on your positions since your gone much of the day?

No. Never. I evaluate each postion after the closing bell. You know how many stocks blow through stops just to reverse higher? Too many. I would rather take an extra 2-3% loss and know the stocks upside is done than take the proper loss just to see it reverse and close in the upper range of the intraday trading range.

Yes I do know what you’re saying and hate being taken out by a stop. i usually use a mental stop depending on market conditions,but if I was away as much as U are I would most likely set a stop way down below where I thought it would get taken out in case of some middle of the day disastrous news…..But I hate stops, really do, I usually just check on the ones I’m concerned about if away or just sell them…..

Since I am an aspirating trader as well, may I ask what would be a consistent annual ROE that will allow you to decide that it’s safe to leave the workplace, or you decide not solely on returns, but a host of other variables, such as total capital, performance against indices, etc? Thanks.

No matter what, you dont want to trade for a living with less than $100k if you live in an area with a low cost of living. And if you live in a place like NYC, Boston, LA, or Maui, you better have $250k to do this for a living. Now, I might just be a bad trader but I dont think quitting your day job with $25k is a plausible way to make a living trading stocks.

You better be performing as well or better than the top 5% of the top mutuals funds every year. If you are not, why not just let someone else run your money? That is unless you really enjoy it.

thx for the response.

where in IBD do you find the list “where the Big money is flowing”?

It is now called “stocks on the move”

I import that list everynight along w/ the “stocks up” on the IBD Timesaver table.

All of this is in Section B

“So I assume you set stops, just in case, on your positions since your gone much of the day? ” Your reply -
” No. Never ”
I find it hard to believe that you go against some of the best minds in the business with your no stop policy. Perhaps you can tell us
where, in the many books you have read, this policy is encouraged !

Do you recommend the Worden chart sevice as the 1st charting service to use?
So far I have received the 3 books that came along with the Worden service and wanted to understand through reading first before signing up for the monthly charts, do you recommend just getting the service with the books!
This is new to me and I would like to stay with your gold monthly and what ever you recommend, your record speaks for itself!

Hi,
I found your blog via google by accident and have to admit that youve a really interesting blog Just saved your feed in my reader, have a nice day

If you don’t mind my asking, what kind of annual return have you had in the past 6 years, on average?

I am so sorry everyone!!! I am just now seeing the comments.

Yes, Jim, tcnet should definitely be your first software choice. I would recommend DEFINITELY getting the yearly service so you can save money. Trust me, once you go to tcnet, you will not go back. These charts are simply the best.

Mahalo, florian.

I hope you enjoy what you see.

Will, since 1996 when I started I have an annual return, audited by my ex-accountant in St. Louis (now have one on Maui), has been 42%. I know that is not great, but you have to remember my style is very casual and allows me to live a FANTASTIC life. You never have to watch the market intraday and if you really get this down can do all your scans, orders, and analysis in less than three hours a day.

I know 42% is not a lot to some people but trust me after a long time of doing this, I think you will come to find not many can do that. I have started a public portfolio that is tracked in real-time on the gold service. It started in January. Even though the market is only up .07% our portfolio which has never been more than 60% invested (because we started it at the END of a four-year bull market cycle) is up 3%. If we started the port at the beginning of the run in August of 2006. We would be well ahead of the market.

After we get another severe bear market, that is when you will see the VIX rise and my gains EXPLODE!!

A 42 percent return is very outstanding. I’m a little puzzled because you said before that you didn’t know or have the time to get an annual return figure.

Nevertheless, it is an outstanding figure! The people in the business today don’t average that figure over 10 years. Most of the people in the hedge fund business, mutual fund business, don’t get anything like that over 10 years and the ones who get very decent returns, like 20-25 percent, take 20 percent of the profits for themselves.

Now I have another question: What is “VIX” or what does it stand for?

Thanks so much.

I haven’t become a paid subscriber to one of the levels of your service yet because I want to do some more reading first. Also, market conditions don’t seem exactly great now, and I am about 50 percent in cash myself. I will be in for your paid-for advice on trading some time in the future.

I have to ball park it because living on Maui the cost of living is rising so fast that the last two years keeping track of the gains has been a lot harder with all the distributions. I am not an accountant. But I am ball parking it. I would say it is between 40%-50%. It can NOT be anything less than that or else I would be losing money every year and would be broke. This island is becoming impossible to live on, unless you make $100k a year minimum. I don’t know how anyone else can do it making less…yet they do, God bless them.

The people in the hedge fund and mutual fund business are not great investors. They are great at knowing the right people and going through the appropriate hoops. I have to beat or perform with the top 5% of mutual fund managers every year, or else I would just give my money to them. If you are not keeping up with the top 5% of the funds, just give your money to them. Truth is, with this method, you should outperform 95% of the hedge fund IDIOTS out there. A degree is all you need to open one of these, LOL….fools. And as for mutual funds, you want to beat at least 90% of them.

I want to be in top 5%.

VIX is the volatility index. If you don’t know where the VIX is, you don’t know where the market is. The VIX used to be bullish at 50. I doubt we will ever see that again. I just want 25-30. That is good enough.

Thanks for the definition…I wound up looking it up later, and thought, duh, I could have just done that in the first place. I actually don’t really understand how it is calculated. I guess I’ll get it later, after I do some more research.

I understand the difficulties one would have keeping track of gains/performance figures with as many trades as it looks like you have.

I want to learn your methods to have performance like yours, and I figure with persistence, it’ll happen.

Thanks again,
Will

Nobody has any questions?

I am going to update this section, in detail, once a bear market starts.

Right now I am too busy to even find time to update this section. I have been trying but it is impossible right now with this insane uptrend.

When a bear starts, I will update this.

Love the site and the insights.

So is NOW the time to update this section?

Not quite yet, Jason. I still have a lot of positions in longs and shorts. But to be honest it is time to update so I will get on it soon. It is well out of date. This was put together very quickly so I should go over it a bit more.

Hey, Jason!

I started updating this section. Next, I will update the longs.

Is there anything anyone is unclear of, in particular?

I’ve really enjoyed the posts, and hope to become a more serious trader over time. I am messing around with this TCNet and I’m trying to set it according to IBD principles. Could you tell me more about it than in the previous post? Do I have to be a premium subscriber? I really appreciate your posts, insights and humor.

Mahalo

Ianca, I do not have my tcnet setup to IBD scans. What I do is I create list for each of the IBD scans and then I combine them.

After combining them all I then add another sub-list that looks for ONLY stocks trading above the 50 day moving average.

After I have that list, I then sort by % returns on that session and start scanning from the top performer down to the first one that is flat on the day. I do not scan the stocks that are down. I may check them out, like in this bear market, on down sessions but I have my own scans.

My own Telechart files are located in the forums which is available to gold subscribers. I have my own long scans, short scans, IPO scans, and IBD list that I scan. I also have all of my personal ports in the list in the .tcr file which can be found in the plat chat/economics section of the forums.

We are setting up a FAQ page shortly. Check back there for more knowledge into how I use this system to invest for a living.

Hi Joshua,

I am considering trying your system in a place where I won’t be able to get the paper edition of IBD. Do you believe that you could get everything you needed from their paid online site?

Thanks,

Kim G

Hi Joshua,

I was wondering where “Top New Buys of Mutual Funds” appears & when?

Thanks